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Photo by Taylor Leopold on Unsplash

Poetry | July/August 2021

The Night I Sleep in the Nursery

By Terhi K. Cherry

I hear the yellow walls whispering.
My friend's baby has not arrived
alive. I place my guest towel
on the edge of that baby's crib,
see a white orb floating
in the room. I press my face
into a pillow, try to unsee
a howling woman thrust
a sleeping child onto paper sheets,
sink in the scent of lavender
and grief, my own grief 
left by the door like an umbrella
wet from the rain. The body remembers:
I saved eggs like diamonds,
baked stars with apricots & sugar
dusted my man's lips.
I pictured us on a green lawn.
Nothing would stick;
the ovary ripened, but only some days
the soil bears.
Sometimes the egg speaks:
does not approve.
He left me at dawn & the body answered:
better the clots on the floor than our ghost
living. I do not compare 
how lightning strikes from the sky's throat,
how a woman jolts from the shock of death,
how I scrubbed my blood off marble tiles,
convulsing, as if a spirit hatched out
of my open jaw. I do not say,
I saw the rocking chair moving
from nobody's weight.
Only the chair, rocking. Arms empty,
its lap wide open,
like a woman's biggest wound.


1 reply on “The Night I Sleep in the Nursery”

Alexis Rhone Fanchersays:
July 21, 2021 at 6:54 pm

Exquisite, remarkable poem! ♥️

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